


The Shape of Your Grief

by SouthernRust



Category: Four Brothers (2005)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Brotherhood, Family Dynamics, Grief/Mourning, Vignette
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-15
Updated: 2018-06-15
Packaged: 2019-05-23 19:02:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14940048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SouthernRust/pseuds/SouthernRust
Summary: How do you pick up the pieces of a family that was never entirely whole? What does it mean to be a Mercer? What does it mean to be a man?





	The Shape of Your Grief

_Blessed are those who mourn,  
for they will be comforted._

It takes him the Amtrak and a city bus to get from Chicago to Detroit. He can’t say he misses one city when he’s in the other. It’s like a shittier version of Trading Spaces, except he gets to compare Mom’s house to every couch he’s slept on since. He went from hot meals every day to dreaming about them between mouthfuls of shit from a can. Mass twice a month turned into drop-ins twice a year—always with the promise to come back, to stay longer. Next time.

If he’d known _next time_ meant putting Mom in the ground, maybe he would’ve said his prayers like a good little child of God and asked for better health and better days and all the blessings Heaven could shower down on this garbage heap of the world.

When the church darkens his grey-sky view, Jack Mercer yanks the pull-chord. He’s barely off the last step before the bus peels away. Gravel and chunks of ice spatter the backs of his legs.

He’d say it brings back memories of stumbling home after a gig, but those only started after Chicago. Detroit did him no favors except give a healthy dose of schoolyard beatings, and it hasn’t changed. Dirty town. Dirty cops. Dirty pussy—or so Bobby says.

One step back inside the city limits and this town’s already trying to smear its shit in his face.

Jack shoulders his guitar case and ducks his chin into the knitted threads of a handmade scarf. In his pocket, one hand twists a metal cross. He plucks at glass beads, one at a time, and wraps a loop around each of his fingers. In Detroit everything is made of rust and hard anger. The cold ain't all that different from anything else they're used to, Angel told him once, except the wind is something you can’t hit back when it knocks you on your ass.

The barbell through his tongue clacks against the inside of his teeth. Blazing up this close to the graveyard wouldn’t sit right in his gut. Mom never forced him to kick the habit, despite her threats to flush every new pack down the toilet. The least he can do is wait at little longer. Just until after the service.

Click. Click. Click. The noise sounds like his Zippo, like the clatter of a hot spoon on the table. Been a while since he sunk that low into bad habits, but this? Forget downward spirals. The news jerked him sideways and upside down and headfirst into a bottle—the first one he could get his hands on. He puked a handful of pills back up in the sink, but the knot in his throat? That he’s still choking on.

Jack scrubs at his eyes with the backs of fingerless gloves. He pulls out a beat-up phone, punches in a few digits and jabs the speaker against his ear.

_“Jackie, it’s Evelyn. I tuned in to the last half of your show on the radio. This band’s really the start of something wonderful. You’re still coming home for Thanksgiving, right? It’d be nice to have a little racket in the house again. Love you, sweetheart.”_

The recording goes silent and some automated voice lets him know what’s up: there are no more messages. Jack thumbs at his phone.

_“Jackie, it’s Evelyn—”_  


He didn’t plan to come home, not this time. Home wasn’t ever this city or the house with his own bedroom. It wasn’t the faucet that leaked brown shit first thing in the morning or old wood leaving splinters in his big toe. Home was a person—four of them. Home was three brothers more fucked up than the last and a mother who never clenched her fists in anger. The only thing she ever held onto that tightly was her patience and her smile, and the worn, fragrant beads of a well-loved rosary.

That should’ve been worth praying for. God thank his blessings. God damn the animals who took it away.

A hand lands on his shoulder. It’s the gentle touch a father of girls would have: the kind of touch you learn first from a mother. Jack turns to confirm the suspicion. Jerry’d show up early for his own funeral if he could. He doesn’t resist when he’s pulled into a hug.

“Welcome home, little brother.”

Jack takes a deep breath against Jeremiah’s jacket and lets the sting of his tears fall, silent.


End file.
